


exxus

by ferretman



Series: sic semper tyrannis [1]
Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Complicated Relationships, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, canon lore is like multicoloured plasticine chunks and i'm smashing everything together, dream is basically [undefined], george is stressed, i guess?, it's a weird twist, king george is a goldmine, no beta we die like the citizens of l'manburg, yeah so I'm having fun lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:15:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28033002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ferretman/pseuds/ferretman
Summary: "You need to wash." George blurted. “And get the blood out your clothes.”Dream huffed and strode over to the window, cursing as he tripped over something, and pulled back the curtain just enough for them to be able to see. He made his way back over, silhouetted in the dim light, and came to stand next to George, radiating both too much heat and freezing cold, as he usually did now. His yellowing cape, torn and burned from the Wars, hung limply in the still, stale air.George felt at odds with the memories of what Dream had become and the fact that they were being almost the Dream and George of old here in their former home. Dream had even turned to smile at him not with his usual wolfish grin, but with that puppyish beam George had fallen in love with all that time ago.But they were no longer the soft boys they had once been.
Relationships: Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF)
Series: sic semper tyrannis [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2053359
Kudos: 80





	exxus

**Author's Note:**

> as you will be able to see, I pick and choose from canon like it's a bunch of hors d'oeuvres. I hope it's not too confusing, but given the fact that I'm working on a second part (prequel and sequel) to this piece that will be up in [staticky jumbled lies], ahem, however long it'll take me, a student with ADHD, to write it, it's more of a setting to events and explanations to come.
> 
> PSA: THIS IS IN NO WAY SHIPPING THEIR REAL LIFE PERSONAS! THIS IS A WORK CONCERNING THE CHARACTERS THEY PLAY. RESPECT ONLY TO THEIR IRL SEXUALITIES AND SELVES.
> 
> anyway, thank you for coming
> 
> *throws this fic into the void and runs*

"That was violent." 

Dream looked over at him. His mask was blank and splattered with streaks of blood.

"They threatened you, George." His usually green tunic was black and glistening wetly in the moonlight. He must've gone through an artery, George registered vaguely. "They were gonna _kill you._ "

"So you killed them?" George crossed his arms and tried to look anywhere but the red and white of Dream's mask. "That's a bit harsh."

It was an understatement. George felt _sick_ that Dream would do this for _him_ , of all people.

"They'll regenerate." Dream stepped towards him. A drop of black blood rolled off his axe. "They all had about five lives each. Don't worry, George. They just need to be taught how we deal with - with _terrorists._ "

"They were hardly terrorists!" George didn't even know why he bothered anymore. They were all long past morality. Not after Schlatt had manipulated _The Blade_ of all people to kill Tubbo in front of god and everyone - the phrasing was funny, he realised absently, because although Dream was pretty much god now, and he hadn't been there for that particular incident. But George still saw it in his sleep, saw it when he woke up with Dream’s arm around his waist and damp breath on his neck and- "Besides, I can fucking _handle myself_."

He brandished his sword in a somewhat futile attempt to make his point. He heard Dream scoff. 

He knew what Dream thought of him. That he was weak, easily spooked, a "screamer", as he liked to put it-

"You can." Dream took another step forward, crowding George into the wall. He was a good liar. "But you shouldn't have to. The King is a neutral party. He doesn't kill his people. He doesn't _get involved._ But he must also be merciless when it comes to it."

 _Like Eret had_ , _like Eret wasn't,_ went unspoken. Eret had been too much of a loose canon. He hadn’t liked the President, either. He'd been involved with the rebels, he hadn’t executed them when it had been necessary to. Now he was exiled, too.

Tubbo and Tommy were gone. Wilbur had turned up, eyes deranged, and then tired to blow up half the city before running into the woods. The Blade was even more rogue than he already was, although rumour had it that he'd just settled somewhere up in the Northern wastes. Schlatt was inches away from karking it, which realistically wasn’t exactly a bad thing. And finally Eret, king of five years, twice traitor, was now exiled. 

_Who’s next?_

It was probably George. He was the king, after all. And Dream didn’t like any slight on his own power.

It was a dangerous game they’re playing. George didn’t think that he would be able to run away.

“Alright.” He gave in. He was never going to win, not against Dream, especially not with the crown and the heavy mantle on his shoulders; they made him clumsier and it wasn’t like he had been any good to begin with. “Fine. Then tell me what to do."

Dream was close. He lifted one bloodstained hand up and for a split second George thought that it was coming for his neck - but then Dream took off his mask and dropped it onto the ground, followed by his axe.

His face was surprisingly soft. Fond. George could have kid himself and say _loving_.

"George." Dream sighed. His fingers settled, too hot and too cold at the same time, on George's cheek, like burning butterfly wings. "Let's go home."

_And where was that?_

"Just me and you, in our old house, hm?" Surely there would be a trail of ashes and the pink weal of a burn on George's cheek left in the wake of those fingers. "Just me and you."

"Alright." George tipped his face upward and sure enough Dream kissed him, gentle, like he didn't taste of blood. It was nice, though. Routine. Something stable. They parted, just barely, still touching lips and brushing noses and sharing air, but not quite far enough away for George to have been able to see Dream's eyes properly. "Okay."

“George, listen.” Dream pulled away and everything about his expression screamed _love_. It screamed it in a blood-curdling, twisted way, but it was true nonetheless. George didn’t know how to feel about that. “You’re literally...you’re literally one of the only two things I care about in this entire fucking realm, okay? I...I love you.”

“I love you too.” Even after everything, he still meant it. He was pretty sure Dream did too. “Let’s go.”

Dream pulled away with a quick smile and dropped down to the ground, picking up his axe and wiping the blade off on the greying grass. George felt himself shiver as Dream swung it over his back, sliding the mask onto his face. Then Dream was turning his head round to face George, reaching out behind him with a hand and clenching his fingers a few times in a _gimme_ gesture, and it was too late to do anything.

George let Dream grab his hand, breathing in and out and in and out and ignoring the little spots of stickiness on the glove. Dream squeezed his fingers. George squeezed back. 

They set off running, still hand in hand. George tripped a few times, still unused to the heavy weight of the mantle, but Dream was somehow there every time to steady him. 

When they reached the outskirts of the Capital, Dream dropped his hand and lept up onto the low outer city wall. He crouched there, mask glowing ghost-white in the moonlight and reached out again. George used Dream’s hand as leverage to swing himself up onto the rough stone.

They made their way along it as quietly as possible, knowing that the citizens of the Capital had been spooked into fear of any outside noise, what with first Schlatt and his penchant for demonic influence, then the Wars, the Siege, and all those other things that made the area a dangerous place. Seeing George - still wearing both crown and gown for some reason, with his sword smacking awkwardly against his leg as he ran - sneaking around with a being who didn’t have a shadow, even in the stark moonlight, wouldn’t exactly inspire confidence in him as the new King, especially one elected after a string of exiles and executions and still burning fires.

When they were close to the outskirts of the Old Town, Dream disappeared over the side into the city grounds. George followed him, landing awkwardly on the cobbles and then setting off into the sully gloom that was barely cleared by the moon and the gas lamps.

It was a short walk to their old house, despite it being in the centre of the Old Town - it was the first building the Capital ever saw. Dream sticks to the shadows, his mask unreadable as he looks around and dives from corner to corner, his axe shining bloodily. 

Dream vanished into a doorway. George followed him and they stepped through the door into their old home with a wave of Dream's hand.

"Welcome home." Dream murmured, voice low over the clicking of the wards snapping back into place. 

George breathed in. It smelled...like home. Musty. Familiar in a specific way he couldn't pinpoint. 

He looked around the gloomy room. There were the chairs, the table, the cabinets and shelves and odd bits and pieces they'd forgotten to bring with them. 

The clock ticked. It was silent in a different way to the cold emptiness of the wastes just outside the Capital: silent in that midnight-lying-in-bed-with-Dream way.

He remembers the days when they were just Dream and George. Not yet a god, not yet a king. New in the Capital, the usual country boys. George had just arrived from the North with a party, and the next one that arrived from there a year later had included Tommy, Tubbo, Eret and Wilbur (and all of them were gone now, gone back, maybe). Dream had been a Westerner on the scene. There had been a mix up with apartments and they'd ended up rooming together for about two years in this very house where they were now standing. 

Then it had all changed.

George sighed. He could tell that Dream was watching him hawkishly, head tilted to the side. His axe glimmered with the sickly purple colour of Underworld magic and it made for the only source of distinguishable light in the room; the heavy curtains were a thick veil over the small windows of the place.

"You need to wash." George blurted. “And get the blood out your clothes.”

Dream huffed and strode over to the window, cursing as he tripped over something, and pulled back the curtain just enough for them to be able to see. He then made his back way over, silhouetted in the dim light, and came to stand next to George, radiating both too much heat and freezing cold, as he usually did now. His yellowing cape, torn and burned from the Wars, hung limply in the still, stale air.

George felt at odds with the memories of what Dream had become and the fact that they were being almost the Dream and George of old here in their former home. Dream had even turned to smile at him not with his usual wolfish grin, but with that puppyish beam George had fallen in love with all that time ago.

But they were no longer the soft boys they had once been. Dream was drowning his last bits of humanity in a river of blood that went far over his head. George was at least up to his elbows. Murder was the status quo now; at this rate, he had stopped caring about how many people he'd sent into the hell that was the regeneration process. 

"You could join me." Dream reached up and took the mask off, untangling it from the messy bun he'd made of his hair in a way that shook a few strands loose. George swallowed. "The bath's big enough for two, George. King sized." He added with a wink.

"Ew." George felt something in him ease at the smile that his response managed to elicit from Dream. "We'll be swimming in blood." 

"Alright, alright." Dream stepped forward to press a painfully domestic kiss to the side of George's head. George felt his breath hitch of its own accord. Dream was- "I'll go first."

He disappeared again. George swayed on the spot, unsure as to what had just happened.

The muted blue of the room made him feel out of place. He remembered sitting here with Dream, curled up together on the chairs, talking about everything and anything, the sun setting long before either of them would get up to switch the lamps on. Sapnap would wander in and out, sitting with them more often than not.

It had been a happier time. 

But now it all seemed...twisted. Incongruous. Wrong. Out of place. Déjà vu in the worst kind of way.

The damn crown was still on his fucking head.

George reached up and took it off, feeling the jagged and bubbly edges of the thing. The gemstones were roughly cut and dull now. Swiping his thumb over the side of it made his skin catch on the scratches in the metal. There was a dent in the bottom where it had hit the ground after Dream had flung it off Eret's head. 

He set it down blindly on the nearest shelf, hissing as he felt his hand knock into something, making it clink. 

The mantle was next. He unclipped the brooch on his shoulder and put it down next to the crown, watching the green of the gemstone spark in the darkness. The cape dropped off his shoulders, too heavy to stay on, and he dumped it over the back of a nearby chair before it could land on the floor. He set his sword down beside it.

It was easier like this, lighter: the relief was immediate. He took a few clumsy steps towards the other room but then decided against it and instead found himself dropping into the thready plush of a chair.

He closed his eyes and waited.

* * *

George barely managed to step out of the bathroom before Dream was on him, barrelling them into the wall. It was freezing against the skin of George's back and he yelped both from the shock of finding himself pinned and from the cold.

Dream's eyes were hungry, hungry in the dark: they shone a brief predatory green, like a cat's. 

_(Because that's what it was, wasn't it? One big game of cat and mouse. And George was a hair's breadth away from being snapped up)._

They didn't say anything. Dream's eyes narrowed and then he attacked, one hand tangling in George's hair and yanking his head a little even as they kissed. His other hand settled like a vice on George's hip, fingers flexing over the bone like he was about to punch something. 

George's knees nearly gave out. Dream pulled away as suddenly as he had come flooding in, smearing his lips ( _too hot, too cold-)_ over George's jaw and then down his neck. George muffled a whimper at the feeling of kisses trailing down the sensitive skin there, his head slamming backwards into Dream's hand, which was still gripping the hair at the back of his head, and subsequently the wall. 

Dream bit down in retaliation. George couldn't help his strangled groan, not quite of pleasure and not quite pain. 

There was a hand sliding up his tunic. Dream spread his fingers all up George's side, stroking almost soothingly even as he assaulted George's neck then drove back up to kiss him ferociously.

"Bed." George gasped out. Dream made a vague growling noise into his neck and the vibrations made George jerk helplessly. "Please."

Dream hauled him up into his arms and George clutched him as they made it onto the rickety, creaky thing. Dream threw him back, sitting on his haunches on the end of the bed as George lay spread-eagled, panting and shaky. With a smirk, Dream started shucking his clothes and then crawled up the length of the bed to brace himself on his arms over George.

"Got you." 

George had nowhere to run. He found, somehow, that he didn't want to.

It ended a little different to their usual. Rather than fucking him into the mattress until he sobbed, Dream kissed him gently and for the first time in a long while, they were face to face.

After, Dream went and fetched a rag, wiping both of them down before throwing it into the corner and dragging the covers over them both. 

George fell asleep with his arms round Dream's waist and his head tucked under Dream's chin. He fell asleep feeling warm and safe for the first time in a while.

He woke up, unsurprised, aching, cold, and alone, with a pillow in his arms for a bad replacement of the one man he had fallen in love with. The house was silent. George knew that Dream was gone.

There was, however, a note on the bedside table, pinned to the wood by his crown.

 _Be ready_.

George took a brief moment to smile over Dream's spidery, scratchy handwriting.

"I will be." He said into the silence. A pipe groaned. The clock ticked ever closer to showing that it was five in the morning. "Oh, I will."

**Author's Note:**

> I may not be active on Twitter but I _do_ have a Tumblr account if anyone actually turns up to this fic and/or you're bold enough to come find me there. ferret-man is the name. Come chat, ask me stuff, or yell at me, I don't mind ;)
> 
> title is from exxus by glass animals - surprisingly, I found the band before the DNF community did lmao


End file.
